Stratos Property Maintenance

esidenceAt first it went very well, but then my schedule, I'm disabled and take medications and could not be up at the early hour he wanted me to so he could run his machines. I told him that was a condition of him doing my lawn and he had no problem with those terms at the start. But then, he started complaining about how my schedule interfered with his ability to schedule his other customers and he wanted to start my service earlier. I told him I could not accommodate him. He said fine. Then a few more mows and trims, and he came to me in a rant about how my schedule interfered with him scheduling his other customers the way his routes went. Normally, if it was another service company I would have told them it was time for them to find another account. But I knew Devin when he was younger; he used to maintain my basketball court and did a very good job at it, and he mowed my lawn once at 12, but he was too short to handle the mower. So I sat Devin down and explained to him how business worked, (I am retired from my own business after 40 years) and how maintaining good customer relations was essential to the success of his business, meaning if he had to accommodate the disabled he'd better learn how to fast for that was one of the worst voices of disapproval he wanted traveling around about him. The other was the military vets. He said he understood better now. - Devin was at that time an energetic, very hard working young man on a mission, wanting so badly to own his own business, be successful, and be the best at his trade. He was arrogant and cocky too, for the good; he was very good at mowing homeowners' lawns and edge trimming and blowing off the cuttings and really making his work a masterpiece. The pride was there. For the bad, I told him he hadn't been on the planet long enough, that he needed at least 3-5 years of quality experience to be measured as a contender in his field, and that he'd better start shutting up and start listening and learning, instead of bragging about how much he knows and can do or he'd find himself in the "I once was a Landscaper" graveyard. He said he had 6 years experience already because he had been mowing laws since he was 13. I said experience is measured by 52 weeks a year, 40 hours a week, 2 weeks vacation if you're luck, How did you get all that experience while you were in school? He shrugged and walked away from me devastated. - Some kids think that if they work school vacations in the warm months and then their summers that that is a year of experience. - Devin went on to do my lawn work for almost another season without incident other than the constant complaining about my scheduling time, so bad that I found myself trying to accommodate him which my pain levels told me I just couldn't do it and I told him that; until I asked him if he could install underground conduit for me under my lawn and sidewalk between 2 buildings. . He said he could and then we set up a date and he and his righthand man, a 17 or 18 year old showed up to dig the trench and install the conduit. I had asked Devin if he had installed conduit before and he said "100's of times, I know what I'm doing". I sarcastically asked him if he was doing it when he was in the crib between feedings....... I knew I had to watch over him then, and I did, and they were doing parts of it wrong and I corrected them and they fixed it and then finally when I told them they needed more glue on the pipe & fittings because the installation was underground and we had to keep the water out, his helper snapped at me that they did not like to be told how to install simple conduit, that they had done it before, and that they did not need my help. Devin supported him and said they knew what they were doing, installing conduit was a no-brainer, and I could go do something else. - Fact is installing conduit is a no-brainer if you know how to do it, they didn't, it was obvious, it was my money and my materials and I knew I had to stay with them to get the job done right. They didn't like it, but I told them they would not get paid unless I was there to show them how to do it correctly, and that if they shut up, maybe they'd learn something. Well, it was an argument the rest of the way, and through it all Devin was so insistent he knew how to conserve pipe sizes needed out of pipe lengths so there was no waste, that in the end he was short pipe and I had to go buy some more, just because he would not listen and learn, he had to show off in front of his helper and try to be right. In the end the job was a mess underground, I knew it, I was disgusted, but I'd had enough and all I wanted was the 2 of them off my property. - A few days later I got a bill, it was excessive, $205, (it was work $130 tops) I paid it and told Devin in a note that he was on his honor to come back and fix his shoddy work. Oh, he knew it was shoddy, no doubt about it. He said "sorry" when he left. But he never did come back, I hired someone else to fix it, it had to be dug up and done right, he did not glue both pieces of the fittings and they had come separated underground, plus the pull-string I provided to him to put in the pipe as he assembled it was stuck to the glue inside. That cost me $90 - Through the 2 seasons he did my lawn services, I let him borrow one of my 100' extension cords and one of my pancake compressors with a hose, both to help him start getting his business off the ground, but letting him know they were not "gifts", he had to return them when he had enough money to buy his own in a few months or so. I also sold him my BowFlex exercise machine and he was to pay me for that under the same arrangement. To this date, although I have called, emailed, and texted him repeatedly, he has not paid me for the bowFlex or returned the tool items. Word is out, like wildfire, of course. At my age, I'm 64 now, I have a lot of friends. - What did he gain? Materialistic assets for free? From a disabled man? What matters is what he lost, a good, paying customer, who just had a schedule request he had to follow. He couldn't . It always had to be his way or it was an argument. In business, and as I once told Devin, one has to remember that a lost customer is measured times 10. If you lose one, you lose 10 potential others by that loss's word of mouth. - I did not hire Devin's company again after my collection of ordeals with him. He needs more education, and he needs to learn how to deal with customers, and to get it drilled in his head that equivocally 'the customer is always right' , lessons he will unfortunately it seems learn the hard way. Alone I would hire him once he got straight with me. But not with his company of clown employees he works so hard to impress at a customers' expense. Again, as I said earlier, he's a good kid but has got a lot to learn, and he hasn't been on the planet long enough to learn all he thinks he knows. . - I gave him a Quality Mark of B for Good above because his lawn work by himself and his attention to detail was very good.

Workers arrived promptly. Worked for 2 hot days. The young man that talked to me was a polite gentleman. They left things tidy.